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CBIZ Told Grant Thornton No, No, No, Before Saying Yes
But CBIZ Was Already Looking for a Way Out When Grant Thornton Called
The board rejected $47, $52 and $54.30 a share — and asked for $56 — before a June 8 “best and final” $55.
By CPA Trendlines Research
Special Report
CBIZ was looking for a way out of its predicament months before Grant Thornton called, and longer still before an activist investor wrote to tell the board what to do. In the end, CBIZ took $55 per share from Grant Thornton, but only after rejecting three lower offers from the firm.
MORE Special Report on the CBIZ-Grant Thornton Deal:
- Fatal Attraction: How the Marcum Deal Set Up CBIZ for the Grant Thornton Takeover
- CBIZ Tells Grant Thornton No, No, No, Before Saying Yes
- Grant Thornton Flexes PE Muscle in CBIZ Deal
- CBIZ: Spanning 2 Rollup Eras in 2 Centuries
- $55 a Share: Who Won, Who Lost in CBIZ’s 29-Year Rollup
- CPA PE Deal Tracker™: The Consolidator Gets Consolidated
COMING NEXT: Was CBIZ CEO Jerry Grisko Worth It? MORE Private Equity
In March, with the stock at $27 and falling toward $25 — roughly 70% below its February 2025 peak — CBIZ’s board went to Goldman Sachs for a preliminary view of what the company was worth and what its strategic alternatives were, “if any.”
Fatal Attraction: How the Marcum Deal Set Up CBIZ for the Grant Thornton Takeover
CBIZ Grows 52%. Then Growth Stalls, Stock Falls, GT Moves In.
By CPA Trendlines Research
Special Report
Marcum made CBIZ bigger almost overnight. It also quadrupled the debt, more than tripled interest expense, and left executives figuring their best option was Grant Thornton’s $5-billion buyout offer.
MORE Special Report on the CBIZ-Grant Thornton Deal:
- Fatal Attraction: How the Marcum Deal Set Up CBIZ for the Grant Thornton Takeover
- CBIZ Tells Grant Thornton No, No, No, Before Saying Yes
- Grant Thornton Flexes PE Muscle in CBIZ Deal
- CBIZ: Spanning 2 Rollup Eras in 2 Centuries
- $55 a Share: Who Won, Who Lost in CBIZ’s 29-Year Rollup
- CPA PE Deal Tracker™: The Consolidator Gets Consolidated
COMING NEXT: Was CBIZ CEO Jerry Grisko Worth It? MORE Private Equity
CBIZ entered 2026 looking like one of accounting’s great consolidators. Revenue had risen 52.1% in 2025 to $2.758 billion, and net income had increased 181.3% to $115.4 million.
And yet, by July 28, the company is ready to take $55 per share, better than the $46.70 the day before, but less than the $88.65 peak last year.
Ryan Bunn, the activist shareholder at Reference Equity, which had been pressing the company since mid-June to raise equity and keep buying firms, says the decision “feels like capitulation.”
The arithmetic underneath the growth may help explain why.
Shelly Weir: Florida CPAs Save Their Licenses. For Now | Gear Up for Growth
FICPA CEO Shelly Weir says the profession survived its most serious deregulation fight yet. The threat isn’t confined to Florida.
True Advisor: Buy now | Learn more.
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Gear Up for Growth
With Jean Caragher
For CPA Trendlines
Florida CPAs came closer than many realized to losing the regulatory structure behind the CPA license, as a sweeping deregulation drive threatened the state Board of Accountancy and raised the possibility of a credential weakened to the point that “anybody could put those letters behind their name,” according to Shelly Weir, president and CEO of the Florida Institute of CPAs.
MORE Jean Caragher here | Get her best-selling handbook, The 90-Day Marketing Plan for CPA Firms, here | MORE Gear Up for Growth here | MORE CPA Trendlines Streaming Network here
“The elimination of the CPA license altogether – or having a license so degraded and devalued that anybody could put those letters behind their name – I don’t know what terrifies me more,” Weir tells Jean Caragher in this episode of Gear Up for Growth.
$55 a Share: Who Won, Who Lost in CBIZ’s 29-Year Rollup
For Marcum partners, it’s complicated.
By CPA Trendlines Research
Special Report
Grant Thornton’s cash offer creates four very different CBIZ histories: a modest return for some long-term holders, a nearly 4,800% gain for investors who bought after the 2000 collapse, a 38% loss from the 2025 peak and no single answer for former Marcum partners.
MORE Special Report on the CBIZ-Grant Thornton Deal:
- Fatal Attraction: How the Marcum Deal Set Up CBIZ for the Grant Thornton Takeover
- CBIZ Tells Grant Thornton No, No, No, Before Saying Yes
- Grant Thornton Flexes PE Muscle in CBIZ Deal
- CBIZ: Spanning 2 Rollup Eras in 2 Centuries
- $55 a Share: Who Won, Who Lost in CBIZ’s 29-Year Rollup
- CPA PE Deal Tracker™: The Consolidator Gets Consolidated
COMING NEXT: Was CBIZ CEO Jerry Grisko Worth It? MORE Private Equity
Same deal. Same $55 a share, cash, on the table for every CBIZ shareholder. Four completely different outcomes, depending on when you bought in.
CBIZ: Spanning 2 Rollup Eras in 2 Centuries
CBIZ, once known as Century Business Services, started with a “rapacious appetite” for acquisitions. Now it’s the appetizer.
By CPA Trendlines Research
Special Report
The company that helped pioneer Wall Street-backed accounting consolidation in the 1990s is set to be absorbed by today’s private-capital version of the same idea.
- Fatal Attraction: How the Marcum Deal Set Up CBIZ for the Grant Thornton Takeover
- CBIZ Tells Grant Thornton No, No, No, Before Saying Yes
- Grant Thornton Flexes PE Muscle in CBIZ Deal
- CBIZ: Spanning 2 Rollup Eras in 2 Centuries
- $55 a Share: Who Won, Who Lost in CBIZ’s 29-Year Rollup
- CPA PE Deal Tracker™: The Consolidator Gets Consolidated
COMING NEXT: Was CBIZ CEO Jerry Grisko Worth It? MORE Private Equity
Twenty-seven years ago, a rollup called Century Business Services was buying accounting firms with what its own mergers chief called a “rapacious appetite.” Today it goes by a different name — CBIZ. And on July 28, it agreed to be bought.
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